


Where the Heart Is

by laurus_nobilis



Category: Brave Police J-Decker
Genre: Family Fluff, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 08:19:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1297960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurus_nobilis/pseuds/laurus_nobilis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deckerd arrives home to find out that things have changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the Heart Is

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the second round of Cotton Candy Bingo, with the prompt "Surprise".

It had been a long day at work. Not, for a change, the kind where they had to battle whatever new and creative menace the criminals in the city had came up with this time. This particular day had been slow and full of all the paperwork they couldn’t take care of while they _were_ out there fighting monsters. Yuuta had excused himself early, claiming he needed to take care of some project or other (something for school, Deckerd assumed), which didn’t exactly improve matters. Deckerd didn’t mind filing reports, but sharing a room with Power Joe and Drill Boy when both of them were bored was almost as exhausting as being out in the field.

He couldn’t wait to be home. Perhaps he could get Yuuta to watch a movie with him, if the boy was done with whatever he had been working on.

Deckerd was still almost a block away from the house when he heard voices and the noise of heavy objects being moved. It seemed that Yuuta was still busy, then. What _was_ he doing? Curious, and with an empty street before him, he gave in and accelerated just a bit for the last few meters. He arrived to find the entrance to the garage blocked with several large boxes. For a moment, he felt a pang of dread - but no, that had been just a dream, long ago. Surely there was a good explanation for this…

“I _told_ you he’d be home soon!” Yuuta’s voice brought him back to reality. “Deckerd, don’t look yet! It’s not ready!”

“… not ready? What are you doing?” he asked. He did as he was told, however, and remained in his car form resisting the urge to peek over the pile of boxes.

For several moments, there was no answer except the sound of hurried footsteps, Yuuta and his sisters whispering to each other, and the rustle of paper and tape here and there. Then Yuuta climbed over the boxes with the biggest smile on his face.

“There! Now you can take a look!”

Deckerd changed into his robot form and knelt down so that he could move the boxes away. He didn’t get very far with that, however. Once he had removed a couple of them, there already was an opening large enough to see what was inside.

And it left him speechless.

“Surprise!” Azuki and Kurumi shouted in unison. Just like Yuuta, they looked like they had been making themselves busy, and they were grinning brightly. It wasn’t hard to see why.

The garage was completely different from how he had left it that morning. There weren’t any tools or anything of the like lying around anymore; all of that, he reasoned, was probably inside the boxes now. But they hadn’t just cleaned it and put it in order. It was far more than that.

There were large photographs all over the place, taped as some kind of improvised collage. Deckerd remembered when some of them had been taken, but most of them were new to him. Almost all of them, of course, included Yuuta; sometimes with his sisters, sometimes with the neighbours or his classmates. There were many photos of his teammates, appearing both individually and in groups. Every single person he knew was somewhere on those walls.

“Ah, he has no words!” Kurumi laughed. “That counts as a success!”

Yuuta stuck out his tongue at her, and then moved to climb on Deckerd’s shoulder.

“You _do_ like it, right?”

“Of course I do,” he said, softly, once he managed to collect himself. “But why…?”

“We’ve been thinking about it for a while now,” Yuuta explained. “I know you don’t mind staying in the garage, but it just doesn’t feel right. You’re part of the family, after all. So we thought we’d make it look more like a bedroom. Like you guys did with the Decker room! It just took a bit longer than we thought. And then we had to find the time to do it when you weren’t around.”

“You must have worked very hard… How did you get all these photos?” Deckerd asked. It wasn’t just the amount that was surprising, but also the variety. Even Seia’s men and the team of mechanics appeared in them.

“Shadowmaru helped,” said Azuki. “He’s been tracking everyone so they would pose. And Mom and Dad sent a picture from their latest trip, too. Look!”

True enough, there they were, waving from some archaeological site he didn’t recognize. They had even signed the photo before sending it. Deckerd had the inexplicable but distinct feeling that, if it had been at all possible, he would be tearing up by now. Judging from the kids’ expressions, he couldn’t help but wonder if it showed. Yuuta stared at him and poked his cheek with a finger.

“Deckerd? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” he said, and his voice was very quiet. “I love it. Thank you.”

“Good, because now you need to help us move all these boxes away from here.”

“Kurumi!” Azuki chided her, and then turned to give Deckerd an apologetic look. “Ah, that ruined the mood…”

But he only chuckled and shook his head. Deep down, he was quite grateful for the change in atmosphere. He really _was_ getting a bit too emotional there.

Sometimes he wondered if that came from Yuuta, too.

“That’s all right. It’s the least I can do,” he said. “But where are you going to put all of this now?”

“In our parents’ room,” Yuuta replied, cheerful, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“E-eh? Really?”

“Really! They gave us permission, so don’t worry,” he explained. “We’ll just take it out again when they come to visit, but that room is empty most of the time. It’d be a waste.”

“Right! We called them before starting this, silly. And they said yes.” Kurumi then launched into a rather good impersonation of their mother. “ _Patokichi needs a bedroom more than we do!_ ”

“That’s… ” he trailed off, and for a moment he felt that he truly had no words. Was this really so simple, so natural for all of them? It was as if they didn’t notice just how much it meant to him. It took him a few seconds to find his voice again. “Then I need to thank them, too.”

Yuuta smiled and patted the shoulder he was sitting on.

“You can write to them later,” he said. “But let’s finish moving this first, all right? So you can finally have a proper room.”

“Mmm. Yes.” Deckerd nodded, smiling right back at him. “A proper room. I like that.”


End file.
